Death penalty in need of review

Posted: Sunday, July 02, 2006

Two recent decisions suggest the U.S. Supreme Court might be stirring itself for a major review of the death penalty. The high court voted 5-3 to ease rules giving inmates a last chance at proving their innocence if new evidence, especially objective scientific evidence such as DNA, turns up. It also voted 8-0 to scrutinize the prevalent system of executing criminals by lethal injection to see if that supposedly "humane" method is actually cruel and unusual punishment.

Thirty-seven states and the U.S. government now execute by lethal injection. But a report in a British medical journal, The Lancet, last year suggested the current three-drug cocktail might only mask the outward symptoms of excruciating pain. The first chemical, sodium pentathal, is an anesthetic. The second chemical, pancuronium bromide, causes muscle paralysis but does not block pain or interfere with consciousness. The third chemical, potassium chloride, stops the heart.

Lawyers for a Florida inmate, Clarence E. Hill, argued that dying inmates actually might feel intense pain without being able to express themselves. Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion stressed that only the manner in which Hill would be executed was being reviewed, not the constitutionality of capital punishment itself. If Hill eventually wins, the justice noted, Florida still could execute him by lethal injection by using a more acceptable protocol. ...

In our view, the fact that there would even be a legal controversy over such a basic question of fairness is further evidence that the death penalty in America is still far from being fair and equitable.